ACLU Prepares To Sue Over Mississippi TRAP Law While Clinic Board Member Is Blocked For Nomination

Jackson Women’s Health Organization hasn’t yet closed under the new TRAP law, passed recently in Mississippi, requiring that all doctors performing abortions be OB-GYNs with admitting privileges to local hospitals, but pro-choice and civil liberties groups in the state are already preparing in case a lawsuit is needed to intervene.

According to WAPT News, ACLU of Mississippi is already looking at taking the state to court.

“(We’re) definitely looking at this law and the implications it will have on the physicians and the clinic in the state,” said Nancy Kohsin-Kintigh of the ACLU of Mississippi….”This last bill has nothing to do with the safety of women,” said Kohsin-Kintigh. “This clinic already has an arrangement here in the state.”

Although the bill has yet to go into effect, those associated with the clinic are already being affected by the governor and lieutenant governor’s quest to turn Mississippi into an “abortion-free” state. Citing his involvement as a board member of the clinic, Dr. Carl Reddix, a Jackson OB-GYN, has now been blocked from confirmation to the state’s Board of Health, despite the fact that Reddix was already serving on the board for nearly a year and that he was initially appointed by then Governor Haley Barbour, an anti-choice Republican.

“Lt. Gov. Reeves had concerns about the appointment because of (Reddix’s) affiliation with the abortion clinic and wanted Gov. Bryant to refer a qualified doctor to guide state health policy,” Reeves spokeswoman Laura Hipp said in a statement to AP.

Reddix, 53, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that he has had a “very loose affiliation” with Jackson Women’s Health Organization for years, and he is not paid for it. He said doesn’t do abortions at the clinic but has admitting privileges in case any patient from the clinic needs to be hospitalized.

“I just take care of their complications if they have any. And they have had very, very few,” Reddix told AP.